The making of the German Village cottage estate billboard

Making the first approach. Suggesting several concepts. Putting together a presentation and showing to the client.

The client wants more. Asking other designers to contribute.

Brushing away bratwurst, gingerbread houses, beer bellies and splendid busts and going back to the heart of the matter: European style houses that would look nice on a neat, calm and informative banner. What if we show a view of a street from an architectural album? And to liven it up we can create three variants, morning, day and night, with corresponding German greetings.

The art director and the artistic director nod in agreement. The art director asks to move the slogan away from the name of the cottage estate.

Trying a black background. Suggesting a variant with 3D letters embedded into the render to look as if they stand in front of the house.

But the letters won’t see the light of day as the client dismisses the idea with rendered houses. We need a new approach once again, this time with the absolute minimum of decoration, authentic German colors and almost no text. Dividing the banner into zones.

Trying to use fachwerk, the traditional wooden framing used in German architecture.

The client chooses the first approach.

Working on the shapes, making the colors more contrasting.

Typesetting in the 5×15 meters (16×50 feet) format and sending for printing.